Nine 2019 Upfront: Nine Delivers a Strong Content Slate

One of Australia’s top media buyers has welcomed Nine’s consistent programming schedule, saying 2019’s “strong content calendar” is exactly “what we are looking for with our advertisers”.

Speaking after the recent Nine 2019 Upfront event at Fox Studios, Peter Vogel, CEO of GroupM agency Wavemaker, said the Upfront’s focus on delivering for clients was “absolutely fantastic”.

“What stands out is the incredibly strong, consistent content that Nine has brought back alongside new properties and also moving properties incubated on other channels to the main channel, like Love Island,” he said.

“If you look at the start of the year with the Australian Open and then what follows, it is a really strong content calendar, which is what we are looking for with our advertisers.”

The Upfront event also saw Nine lay out its content slate, featuring new dramas such as Bad Mothers and a revived SeaChange, and Lego Masters, a family program hosted by Hamish Blake.

Nine also unveiled key business initiatives, such as the next stage of plans to simplify and further automate the buying of television through its unique proprietary technology 9Galaxy, and launched 9Voyager, which is aimed at opening the TV market to more small and medium enterprise (SME) owners.

Vogel said the most appealing aspect of the Nine Upfront was “the data that Nine has built up through 9Now”.

“That enables us to deliver much better targeting and much more relevant messages,” he said. “It is the combination of a powerful content company underpinned by data which is the real future.”

Vogel commended the consistency of Nine’s delivery as what Wavemaker’s clients are asking for from the TV market.

“The way consumers engage with media these days has been really volatile,” he said.

“Nine has had two or three very good years of consistent delivery, and looking at the lineup, certainly for next year, I have no doubt they’ll be able to deliver more consistency, and that’s what clients need. They need to know they are going to be able to consistently engage with consumers.”